The Queen's Alphabet
by Sheepyshavings
Summary: 26 100-word drabbles, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each one pertaining to Regina/The Evil Queen. (Tw: mentions of abuse)
1. A

**A is for Apple**

The apples on the tree were turning black. She reaches out and plucks one from a branch, a quiet snap signaling its break from the stem. The skin presses down under her fingers, insides soft. The tree is as old as she is. The bark is peeling, the leaves browning. She can feel it dying. She holds the apple to her lips and inhales the scent through her nose. It smells like poison and she drops it to the ground. The smell lingers in her nostrils, filling her with a quiet dread. The apples are dying and so is she.


	2. B

**B is for Betrayal**

Betrayal, she learns, is a quiet thing. It happens when she's not looking. It's subtle. It catches her unaware. It hides in the shape of a small girl, a smile, a promise. Betrayal isn't something she has prepared for. She is full of hope and trust and the longing to get away. Betrayal eats at her like acid against her bones, burning the flesh away until she is hardened stone. There is no forgiveness in this betrayal, no soft words of comfort. She can't grasp an offering of repentance, not when it is all torn away. There is no forgiveness.


	3. C

**C is for Cora**

The magic tightens around her waist. It doesn't help that the wedding dress already restricts her movement. Cold eyes mock her. Cold eyes have been mocking her for a lifetime and the voice mocks along with them. She can't hate the voice, though. That makes her feel sick and angry, at herself more than anything. The edges of her eyes burn. It bubbles up in her, starting in the pit of her stomach and reaching into her chest. One push. That's what he said. One little push and glass shatters and the air falls quiet. The voice is finally gone.


	4. D

**D is for Daddy**

_Help _she says. _Your mother is just looking out for you_ he says. _Help_ she says again. _Are you sure it's not just cold feet?_ he says. _She's making me crazy and I'm angry all the time_ she says. _That's what I'm here for_ he says. And finally she knows that she will have to help herself. She needed him then, but now she knows she really never will. He _can_ help her, and as she feels his embrace around her tired shoulders, she creeps a hand up to his heart and pushes. This is all the help she needs.


	5. E

**E is for Emma**

It was never physical. No meeting of flesh, no touch. It never had been. She had once tried to imagine being held down, hands holding her arms, fingers around her throat. Fists pummeling her face, angry welts from the hardness of bones under skin. She wondered what a punch felt like. Genuine combat. Broken bones from punches. Fingers snapped from the impact. But she didn't know. So she fought the only way she had learned. With magic. And then in the graveyard she feels Emma's fist strike forward and catch her in the cheek. It burns, and it feels wonderful.


	6. F

**F is for Freedom**

Hooves pound against the packed dirt, each step sending shocks up her legs. She can taste the morning dew in the air, a sheen forming on her brow. Her heart beats wildly in her chest. Anticipation, nerves. The castle shrinks behind her, trees covering the iridescent spikes. Everything aches from the ride, but all she can focus on is being gone. Every lurch forward is one foot closer to leaving, to freedom. She pictures a cabin in the woods, bluebirds in her window, tea warming over a fire. Suddenly, something catches her around the waist and pulls. Her freedom vanishes.


	7. G

**G is for Gift**

For her thirteenth birthday she is given a corset. It is purple, like the flowers she keeps outside her window in a box. When she picks it up, it is heavy. _To make you beautiful_ her mother says. She doesn't understand how it will make her beautiful, but she braces her hands against the wall anyway as the strings are tightened. She gasps and it feels like someone punched her in the stomach. _How do I breathe?_ she asks. _You don't._ She is puzzled. _But why?_ she asks again. Her mother smiles. _Because when you don't breathe, you are beautiful._


	8. H

**H is for Henry**

The small bundle in her arms weighs more than she thought it would. Warmth soaks through the layers of blankets and he gurgles. He squints up at her, turning his head against the florescent lights in the office. She moves a hand up slowly, scared to touch his hair. It's so thin, wispy, like bird feathers. Her mouth forms into an _oh_ and something inside of her stirs. Her chest tightens and she feels something hot fall down her cheek. _Oh, oh, oh._ She had forgotten how to cry years ago. _Henry_ she whispers, too quiet for anyone to hear.


	9. I

**I is for Innocent**

Looking back at the time before she met that scaly green man, she doesn't even think of that girl as herself. There was a light in her eyes she remembers that seems so far away. Her voice, she thinks, was less full. Or maybe it was more full, and when it lost something it fell that octave. Her hands used to tremble, her lips stuttered over words. Embraces came more easily, reaching out to people, too. She cowered, but she was innocent. Innocence truly is bliss, she reminisces as she paints her lips a dark red. Growing up is painful.


	10. J

**J is for Justice**

She wishes very much for justice. It seems like the rest of the world doesn't understand what she means when she says _She took away my happy ending, why can't I take away hers?_ It's very difficult for people to grasp the concept. She thought this world was about happy endings, but it seems she was wrong. Justice comes in many forms, but it turns out none of them are meant for her. All the attempts, and rosy red cheeks still lift in a satisfied smile. She seeks comfort in the curse. If nothing else, this will be her justice.


	11. K

**K is for Kill**

The adrenaline is almost too much, like someone poured ice water over her. Her hand is hot, though. It rests, halfway in the skin and halfway out. Some part of her wants to cry. She knows she is shaking. She pulls the hand out slowly, senses the pulse. Fear is all she can see across from her, and the instinct to cry dies. Her hand tightens and it feels like everything she has always wanted to hurt is in this beating heart. It is so easy to constrict her grip. Dust trickles down from her fingers and litters the floor.


	12. L

**L is for Love**

She counts the people she's loved on one hand using less than half her fingers. She counts the number of people who have loved her back on one. She can count the number of people who maybe almost loved her but didn't quite make the mark on about one hand. She can't count the number of people who don't love her at all, because she doesn't have enough fingers or hands or feet or toes for that. Love is funny, she thinks. It's so rare that two people love each other equally. How much easier it is to be hated.


	13. M

**M is for Magic**

It caresses her insides like silk through her veins. It holds a lightness and for the longest time she can't put a finger on exactly what it is. It pushes and pulls at her senses, an aching low in her belly and an electricity in her blood. It tastes bitter on her tongue. She can feel it simmer in fingertips, waiting to boil over and saturate the air. _Because I loved it_ she had said. Sometimes it feels crushing. Sometimes it feels like letting go. It was a harsh love, hurting and helping. And she realizes the lightness is freedom.


	14. N

**N is for Never**

She never ate cabbage. She never climbed a tree more than three branches off the ground. She never was late for a meal (after being late once and walking with a limp for days). She never went out alone. She never breathed properly after her thirteenth birthday. She thinks her ribs are permanently flattened. She never got to play with the other children, and by the time she was ten she stopped trying. She never got to hear her mother say I love you. She never had a fairy godmother. She never loved again. She never got her happy ending.


	15. O

**O is for Opinions**

It is her opinion that perhaps the residents of Storybrooke are far too happy. She stares out the window of Granny's Diner and watches that irritating Dr. Hopper walking that incessant dog of his. He looks happy. He looks happy while she is sitting with a sneer on her face, drinking black coffee alone in a diner run by a wolf and the wolf's grandma. It is her opinion that she is not as happy as she should be. Why is everyone else so happy? Her insides clench in anger. This is not how everything was supposed to turn out.


	16. P

**P is for Power**

The green man says magic is power. Her mother says power is freedom. She stands at the edge of her balcony in the moonlight and looks over the trees under the white glow. She feels powerful over creatures of the forest, feels power over the people in her land. She feels power over the servants who grovel in her presence. Power is a strange feeling. It makes her feel safe. She brushes her hands over the railing. Her fingers are cold. She creates a fire around the terrace, warming the air. Magic makes her feel powerful over everything but herself.


	17. Q

**Q is for Queen**

Being queen isn't easy. Being queen means pretending to listen to grievances and then ignoring them anyway. Hearing every gripe and moan comes along with being queen. But those who bother her don't stay for very long. Few do. Being queen means you can wear every outfit your mother would scoff at. Being queen means leather pants, dresses so low cut you have to use magic to hold everything in place. But it doesn't matter, because you are the queen. Queens can have pets. Queens toss away trash and no one bats an eyelash. Queens can do as they please.


	18. R

**R is for Rumplestiltskin**

He holds onto the sides of her arms and guides her while she wears the blindfold over her eyes. _You have to feel the emotion. You have to want it to happen._ She tries, tries to feel that shock of electricity through her body. _Be angry_ he demands. She clenches her teeth and tries to be angry. She is not. _You are weak_ he spits. It comes to her then, the anger. With the anger comes the magic. His shrill giggle fills the air and it makes her face hot. _Magic_, he whispers into her ear,_ is power_. She shivers.


	19. S

**S is for Snow**

_That is Daniel's ring_, she notices immediately as small fingers grasp the golden circlet from the box. _That is Daniel's ring and you have no right to touch it._ It is so easy to take the chain and pull it back tight, feel the pale skin crinkle under the pressure. _Because you were weak_, so she twists tighter. The gasps for air and the strangled yelps spur her on, each moment taking her one step closer to finding an unfulfilled pleasure. She blinks and sees the girl sitting there, holding up the necklace. _It's pretty_. Yes, she thinks. It is.


	20. T

**T is for Time**

Time stops here. She can reach into the air and feel time as it settles around everyone in the town, sinking into their shoulders like heavy rain and holding them down. Time stops in Storybrooke, except time doesn't stop for her. She watches from her own little world at people dragging by, repetitions, greetings thrown about in the same way every day. Sometimes it's maddening. Empty passing. Birthdays celebrated, faces staying the same year by year. She uses time to hold everyone as her prisoner, but sometimes she can't help but feel time is holding her a prisoner, as well.


	21. U

**U is for Unseen**

The blemishes on the inside of her thighs are unseen. The deep marks on her stomach are unseen. The ugly remains of two hours of screaming silently into her pillow while the sharp sting of magic burned holes into her back are unseen. The scars etched into her mind that will never leave are unseen. These reminders are unseen, and she tries so hard to forget about them but they only stare at her blatantly when she stands naked in front of the mirror and touches each piece of her past. She puts her fingers to her head and remembers.


	22. V

**V is for Victim**

She never thinks of herself as a victim. She can't, because the moment she is a victim, she has to think about why she is a victim and her past comes down upon her like a flood and she doesn't have the strength for that. She is not a victim. She is the result of nearly fifty years of barricades and walls made of brick so strong it might as well be made of diamonds. Victims have sob stories and her sob stories are irrelevant, or so she keeps telling herself. She is not a victim. She is a villain.


	23. W

**W is for Weak**

She hates that she was weak. She hates remembering a time when she was weak. Every problem she ever had in life was because of her weakness, and now she smothers it under flamboyant dresses and corsets and elaborate makeup. She demolishes it under deadly heeled boots. She rips it out and crushes it into dust. No one sees her at her weakest. No one will ever again, and if she has to curse every last inch of the land to keep that from happening, she will by her own sweat and blood. There is no room for weakness anymore.


	24. X

**X is for X**

She and Daniel once found a tree near the stable that grew taller than any other tree in the forest. Its leaves fanned out above them, sunlight barely peeking through. He took his paring knife and found a place where the bark had peeled off, carving letters into the wood. She held onto his arm, burying herself into the warmth of his jacket. When he finished, he turned and kissed her. Now, she stands in front of the tree and purses her lips. It should feel more painful, but she doesn't blink as she burns an _x_ across their names.


	25. Y

**Y is for Yearning**

In the first days after marriage, she yearns for comfort. Her eyes still catch her mother's shape in the shadows, though she knows she is gone. In the weeks after marriage the yearning for comfort is replaced by the desire to hurt something. She thought with her mother gone she would stop feeling so angry, but all she thinks about is wrapping her hands around someone's neck. She said _She's making me crazy_. Now she's not even sure if it was her mother who was making her crazy or if the world was set out to do the same thing.


	26. Z

**Z is for Zero**

After it all, she knows she won't get her happy ending. She realizes that she made too many wrong decisions, hurt too many people, lost herself too much. What started as a quest for vengeance turned into a road of blind revenge and her cause was lost long ago. She stares down at her hands and curls the fingers up. There is no magic left in this body. The spark is gone, and she stands up to stand at her front window to look out at the town. All of it adds up to nothing. The score is still zero.


End file.
